


Sign of the Times

by cheezewhiz (suddenlyjiro)



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, everyone is here but the focus is on Charlotte, i just really wanted to explore how charlotte could've been feeling during act 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28602753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddenlyjiro/pseuds/cheezewhiz
Summary: Charlotte, ever the professional, is good at setting boundaries at work; show sympathy to the family, and move on to the next patient. Anything faster is insensitive, anything slower is incautious. Charlotte finds that her resolve is quick to crumble once she is the family.
Relationships: Dr. Charlotte & Marvin (Falsettos), Dr. Charlotte/Cordelia (Falsettos), Trina/Mendel Weisenbachfeld, Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 28





	Sign of the Times

Everything burns — the fabric of her white coat, the lanyard haphazardly hung on her neck, the engagement ring on her finger — and Charlotte, despite her penchant for preparedness, finds that she cannot put out this fire. It has spread and consumed everything in its path, the smoke thick and vice-like in its grip as it clouds Charlotte’s mind. Medical school taught her how to maneuver through code blues and near-death experiences, taught her the right doses and diagnoses, and she’s damn good at it, too. However, it was only through actual practice that she discovers: one never learns how to deal with grief. 

To her credit, Charlotte is good at setting boundaries with her patients.  _ That’s just the professional thing to do _ , she’d tell Cordelia, her fiancée, over the phone during her lunch breaks or over wine during dinners at home.  _ You show sympathy to the family and move on to the next patient _ .  _ Anything faster is insensitive, anything slower is incautious _ . Charlotte finds that her resolve is quick to crumble when  _ she  _ is the family. 

It was just this June when journal articles began popping up about a mysterious illness whose demographic at the time consisted of gay men —  _ gay men _ , she remembers muttering to herself in disbelief. She almost, almost chalked it up to Reagan propaganda. Previously healthy gay men, in their prime no less, as the articles noted, began coming in with either Kaposi’s sarcoma or a rare form of pneumonia and a weakened immune system. Charlotte was by no means religious, but she spent the following nights praying, begging, for a miracle. 

Maybe God misheard her, or maybe God was just cruel, but it took no more than two weeks for Whizzer to come into the clinic. Marvin held Whizzer’s hand the entire time, possibly anchoring his lover to the ground, willing him to stay there with him.  _ Maybe it’s just the flu, maybe it’s just fatigue _ , Marvin whispered, over and over again. Almost like a prayer. But then she sees it: purple lesions just right above the waistline of his shorts, ill-fitting with how much weight Whizzer had lost by then. 

Charlotte, every night of Whizzer’s hospitalization, barely managed to keep her tears in. She figured Marvin needed her to be strong, figured Jason might need it as well. The Bar Mitzvah came and went; with only seven of them in attendance, there wasn’t much noise or spectacle, just a family affair in the purest sense of the phrase. The look of pride in all four of Jason’s parents was unmistakable as he recited the prayers, but there was something in Whizzer’s eyes — resignation, Charlotte now deduces — that almost broke her. 

Whizzer died that night in Marvin’s arms. How devastating is it, to die on the day of your son’s coming-of-age ceremony, how  _ unfair _ ? No less by a disease no one has yet to figure out. No less by a disease who seemed to mock his entire being. 

“You know, I never talked about what happened that night,” Marvin rasps, facing his entire family whose features were drowned out by the fluorescent light above. It had been barely half a year since the funeral, which was a struggle in and of itself, with how they were rejected by multiple parlors. Barely half a year had passed, but now Marvin is slowly succumbing to the very disease that took his lover all too soon. Trina goes to help him up, fixing a pillow on his back. 

“What night?” Trina responds. She looks around the room, weary and weathered, hugging her light pink cardigan tightly around her body. She bites her lip, something she’s been doing a lot lately. 

“Whizzer’s death.” 

“What about it?”

“I managed to propose to him right before he died. Fuck till death do we two part, I’m meeting him wherever the fuck he is,” And for the first time in months, Marvin laughs. It does not come without an attack of coughs, but it is enough to lighten the mood in the room. Trina faintly grumbles a  _ language!  _ as she glances over to Jason, though it’s more out of habit than anything else. Silence falls, all too consuming and all too nerve-wracking, before Marvin speaks up again with a shaky, “He said yes.” 

“When did you even have the time to buy him a ring?” Mendel chuckles softly, cautious. A tad tactless, Charlotte thinks, but his voice is enough to drown out the heart monitor for a moment that she mentally thanks him for asking. The man’s hand absentmindedly draws circles on the back of Trina’s palm, the latter leaning her head against his shoulder. A wave of emotion hits Charlotte all at once: anger, because  _ it’s so unfair  _ that Trina has Mendel, and she has Cordelia, and here Marvin is, barely a shadow of what he used to be, barely half of the man Whizzer left behind; fear, because Marvin has shown no signs of improvement; and finally, resignation. Charlotte, after years of 26-hour shifts and on-call duties, after years of dealing with birth and disease and loss, now feels resigned. 

“A few months after the baseball game,” Marvin says, eyes set at a certain point on the wall but not staring. Not quite. “Char, remember, I brought him to you straight out of a game of racquetball?” 

“Yeah,” Charlotte nods, trying to muster up a smile. She’s sure the corner of her lips faltered ever so slightly. “What about it?”

“It would’ve been our fourth month back together the day after that. I was going to ask him then. Had a fancy date all planned out. I was already so sure that I want to spend the rest of my life with him,” He pauses, a ragged and labored breath, “Still am.” 

No one knows what to say in response, so they make do with the uncomfortable silence. Charlotte tries to feed Marvin ice chips but the latter refuses, his eyes still trained on the same spot as earlier. 

Charlotte feels emotions bubble up in her chest, almost like bile, like heartburn. The anger and the fear and the resignation mix into a cocktail so strong it lines her throat with fire and settles in her stomach. The sadness is acidic. Minimal research has gone into the disease taking these people’s lives, and even then, all the answers they find are for the wrong questions. What do you tell men in their 20s, in their 30s, in their prime, men with families, men in the closet — how do you answer,  _ Why me? Why me of all men?  _

Charlotte can answer anything: sexual history, drug use, blood transfusion gone wrong, but she finds that even these answers come short to the loaded nature of the question. And Charlotte resents it, not having the right answers; for God’s sake, that’s what she’s dedicated her life to since medical school. 

It all comes unraveling soon after. The pain, the hate, the insecurity, the uncertainty, everything she’s done so well to cover up is resurfacing.  _ Why now? Why cry now?  _ She thinks, feeling her eyes dampen with tears, but not letting them fall.  _ Why Whizzer? Why Marvin?  _ She gulps.  _ Why the fuck can’t I help them?  _

“Jesus, that’s what they’re calling it now?” Trina scoffs, prompting Charlotte to pay attention and look on the TV: a newscast on Marvin’s disease. It’s nearing the end of 1981, after all, and yearly statistics are a vital part of the practice.  _ Gay-Related Immune Deficiency _ , the anchor enunciates, her voice all too calculated. Charlotte can’t even pretend she missed the homophobia under her tone. 

Soon after, visiting hours come to an end. The adults reluctantly say their goodbyes to Marvin first with false promises of  _ you’re looking better than yesterday, Marvin  _ and a kiss on the forehead. A  _ get some sleep tonight, Marvin, you need it _ . A  _ see you tomorrow _ . 

“I love you, dad,” Jason whispers, reaching out to give his father a gentle hug. A specter of a hug. 

“I love you, too, kid,” Marvin smiles, just as gentle. Just as spectral. “Whizzer loved you, too. So much.”

“I know.” 

He follows the rest of the family outside the room, with only Charlotte staying behind. She takes a seat right by the bed, feeling the weight of the entire world come crashing down on her shoulders. Marvin notices and turns his head in her direction, the labor that went into such a simple movement not going unnoticed, and Charlotte knows that look.

“You okay, Marv?” She asks, but she knows that look all too well. She chooses to focus on the ring on his finger instead, a platinum band with a small diamond. It shines, reflecting the light from above, and it almost feels like a mockery. A snide, snarky low blow from the universe — because there is no way God exists, Charlotte resolves, not here, not now, not when she’s losing two of her closest family members in less than a year, not when she’s spent so many years studying how to treat sick people and now here she is, helpless and defeated and so, so resigned. 

“I can’t wait to see Whizzer again, Char.” 

For the first time in her entire career, she finds herself crying in her call room. 

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i know i'm very late to the party, but this is my first work for the falsettos fandom! i plan on writing more in the future, hopefully happier ones at that. feedback is very much appreciated, please let me know what you think! <3


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